Next question: Do you want people to take it for free
or do you want to charge a fee? The free assessment
route is great for simply collecting data, building a
mailing list, or selling other products based on how
an individual scores on your assessment.

Terry Paulson, PhD, CSP, CPAE, created a
political assessment and used the findings in
media interviews. Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE, and
Don Hutson, CSP, CPAE, created an assessment
to help sell a ne w book. Brian Tracy, CPAE, used a
free assessment to build a hefty mailing list.

To create a low- or no-cost assessment, you
can use Survey Monkey, Questionmark.com,
AssessmentGenerator.com, or Assess.biz.

To make a business selling online assessments as
I have, you have another decision to make: Do you
want to use an off-the-shelf assessment or create
your own unique assessment?

OFF-THE-SHELF

Widely used off-the-shelf assessments include DISC,
MBTI, Motivators, Hartman, and others. Using a
“brand name” assessment lowers the barrier of entry.
Since these tools are already well known, you won’t
have the burden of explaining an assessment model
with which your prospects and clients are unfamiliar.
And, since many companies already use one or more
of these assessments, it makes sense for them to purchase them from you if they are one of your clients.
Additionally, certifications in these well-known tools
can boost your expertise.

CREATE-YOUR-OWN

Creating and promoting your own custom assessment
can be quite costly, but immensely profitable. There
are several items to consider when creating your custom assessment, such as:

 Type: Self-assessment or 360-degree (multi-rater)
assessment? If a 360-degree assessment, you’ll need
the names of the rater groups (these are the people
who give assessment feedback to the end users, such
as manager, colleague, direct report, or client).

 Competencies: You’ll need the competencies
being measured, the questions per competency, and
the scales used to measure the competency.

Diversifying
my speaking
business
into online
assessments
turned out to
be one of the
best business
moves of my
career.